Travel Writing

My current assignments in Odesk is writing travel articles. I love traveling and it is now one of my favorite niches. My ultimate dream as a writer is to be a travel writer. What are the perks? Here are some:

Stay in luxurious hotels
Experience events and tours
visit wonderful destinations

All of these are for free!!! Resorts and companies are willing to pay in exchange for a good review. For those interested, this ebook is a great help:

Bonus!

I just received a small amount of bonus from my client. Clients are not greedy to pay extra for a well done work freelance writers do. So, if you are perceiving freelance writing as a career, always deliver a high quality article. The bonus was not that big but it's enough to buy my son a nice birthday cake!

Disappointing writer

I am prompted to write this post when one of my writers gave me a "smart" copied work. He was one of my reliable writers; submitting articles on time and writes quite well. Though I was apprehensive of his latest work that seemed not as good as before but the final straw was when I had to rewrite his three articles instead of editing them. It would have been fine if his work was not nice but he copied his reviews( the assignment) from another website.

Copywriters use Articlechecker or Copyscape to detect plagiarism and if you pass those tools your article is good. However, when I intensively examined his work, it turned out that he paraphrased almost all the sections of the reviews. He had the same sentence order but just fill in some words in between or used a different word. With what he did, I had a bad impression on him already and no one can blame me if I will stop giving him assignments. An excuse of " I was sick when I wrote those.." is no doubt inexcusable.

Let me keep it straight, I am not posting this to humiliate the writer but as a guide to those who want to be a freelance writer. Submitting high quality work will give you an assurance of steady work. My success in this realm within a short period of time is due to my repeat clients. My first client is still my client now though the pay is not that high. With positive feedbacks from freelance sites clients will know your work attitude which is very important.

Writing Samples

Clients prefer to see some writing samples to test your ability as a writer. You can write a simple article and attach it to your applications. It may take a while to learn the ropes of writing short but concise articles.

For a start, check my site for my writing samples...www.valcaulin.com

I would be more happy to know that you will learn something from those articles..

Good luck!

Freelance Writer: What are Expected From You?

I have received many applications for freelance writers and I always list down my expectations. True, there are many projects ready for you and you can really make money. But it's not an overnight success; even if you are working freelance, you spend most of your time at the computer. For starters, you have to be quick in finding new job postings and also, spending time writing to meet deadlines.

So what does it takes to be a freelance writer? Here are some of them.

• Steady and stable internet connection. Using the cafe will be expensive in the long run. If you really decide to be a freelance writer, you have to have your own internet connection. Clients want to communicate with you often particularly regarding updates. Some clients can give you urgent assignments.

• Quality and original work. Some writers fail to give what the client really wants, just like any job; you have to satisfy your customer. It's not about meeting deadlines but it has to be really good and people will read them. There are some that editing their work means rewriting. Also, it is such a shame when writers have 25% duplications in their work. Before submitting your work, run the ArticleChecker to erase any duplications.

• Deadlines. Clients have heard all excuses from writers - black-out, emergency, blah blah blah. Not to be rude, there are really emergencies that would come our way as writers. The best way is to do your project ahead of time. Deadline is the name of this game; you have to play with it.It is also very unprofessional to cancel a project few hours before the deadline. If you must cancel a project for any reason, it must be at least 12 hours before the deadline.

There are many expectations from a freelance writer, but since you are just starting; stick to the three things I mentioned. Freelance writing is all about discipline and dedication.

Your Own Website

Having your own website can help build your credibility as a writer. On my experience,I landed on many projects due to my website and even got invitations rather than applying to clients. It's not as expensive nor complicated to have a website or at least your own domain.

I paid just a small amount of $15 for the domain and it is a very successful investment for me. I just place all my writing samples in my website; it is like a blog but it's under my own domain. It's easier for clients to scan through all your articles and as I said, it is more impressive.

Check out my own site at www.valcaulin.com and see what I mean...

To all freelance writers or those who wants to be...God bless us all!